Book 3 of the Raksura novels would not have been able to hit its emotional notes so perfectly without the grounding of the first 2 books. Everything that main character Moon learns about his people only serves to increase his self-doubt; being Moon, he hides it under reticence and panicked aggression. All the things I loved from the first two books came back super extra in the third: utterly fantastic alien morphologies, creepy attacks from the psychotic Fell, super tense Raksura politics, terrifyingly fierce Raksura matriarchs, everyone’s favorite no-nonsense grumpy Raksura grandpa, and of course Moon, the emo taloned beast who would rather pick fights than talk about his feelings. The last paragraph of the novel completely stuck the landing for the entire trilogy. Masterfully done.
Tag: genre-fantasy
A Hero Born, by Jin Yong, trans. Anna Holmwood
No one watches a wuxia movie for the clever plot and detailed characterization; similarly, no one should read A Hero Born (Legend of the Condor Heroes, #1) expecting anything approaching a coherent storyline. It’s all about the action. The bones of a story are there: two fathers die, two baby sons live to carry on their legacies, they are separated but fated to meet… but it all gets drowned beneath the crazy martial arts nonsense, and boy do they get into depth with that. It’s kind of like watching an entire season of Dragon Ball Z – not deep, nor exactly logical, but undeniably entertaining.
The Nameless City trilogy, by Faith Erin Hicks
The Nameless City trilogy consists of three books: The Nameless City, The Stone Heart, and The Divided Earth. The city in question has been conquered so many times that its name has been lost; its inhabitants merely put their heads down and just try to get by. Kaidu, an extremely unwarlike scion of the current occupiers, slowly gains the trust of a native girl who calls herself Rat, and soon the two find themselves at the center of a conflict that could destroy the city. The main characters were adorable and even the villains were deftly handled; the art style was simple and clean with great details, especially when it comes to illustrating the city itself. It’s theoretically for kids, but the complex character motivations and the themes of identity and belonging make it good reading material for adults as well.
Scorpica, by G.R. Macallister
Thoroughly awesome book set in a matriarchal society, in which five queendoms exist in an uneasy balance of power. Scorpica is the martial queendom, where girls are trained to battle and boys are given over to other queendoms to raise. I absolutely loved the various queendoms and their clashing cultures, illustrations of the various ways that matriarchies would rule. Great pacing, building towards a climactic ending; the worst thing about this book was finding out that it was actually only published earlier this year, and that I would have to wait for further sequels to arrive.
Point of Knives, by Melissa Scott
Novella in the world of Astreiant, set after Point of Hopes. Honestly I wasn’t impressed with this one either, may abandon the series despite its easy availability at the library. After their meet-cute in the first novel, the two main characters have taken up with each other with no fanfare whatsoever; their cop-vs-criminal role conflict is given barely a mention and once again the author seems more concerned with setting the scene than telling the story.
The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
Book 2 of the Queen’s Thief series, following The Thief. This one is told with several viewpoint characters, and features Eugenides’ interactions with the Queen of Attolia, who had to learn to rule with an iron fist in order to secure her kingdom. Something pretty traumatic happens right off the bat to Eugenides, who (deservedly) spends a good part of the book coming to terms with it while politics in the world around him become increasingly fraught. I loved the thoughtful, detailed, and believable sketches of the political situation and the characters caught up in it; the eventual love story fit in like a perfect puzzle piece, allowing the characters to escape the tightening plot without sacrificing their essential natures. I did not, however, love the ending given the events that kicked off the story initially. Extremely mixed feelings about this one.
The Serpent Sea, by Martha Wells
Sequel to The Cloud Roads, this one follows Moon’s court as they try to find a home. Unfortunately, their ancestral dwelling has been robbed of its heart, sending them on a quest to retrieve it from unfriendly actors. The ecology of this universe just gets weirder and weirder; we meet trading “waterlings” whose entire bodies are seacraft, and enormous seagoing leviathans who have entire cities on their backs (and crazy macrobiomes in their bellies). Yet the heart of the novel is still Moon and his defensive independence, set against his desperate need for family and belonging. Love the focus on emotion amongst all the adventure and crazy worldbuilding, really good stuff.
The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
The Queen’s Thief series has been highly recommended, so I put the first book on my list. It begins with Gen, the thief, languishing in the king’s prison; he’s stolen the king’s seal and publicly bragged about it, which landed him not only in prison but in multiple chains. The king’s magus (chief scholar) takes him out to help steal something else, something far away. The first half of the book is actually incredibly boring; it’s basically Gen complaining about having to ride horseback and the small party telling each other dueling tales of origin mythology. The story doesn’t kick into high gear until Gen actually does steal the MacGuffin and the gods turn out to be more than just stories. Nice twist at the end too. This basically functions as an extended prologue to a series that I’m definitely interested in reading, but in itself I’m not that impressed; it could have been sharper and tighter.
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Really short and focused compared to previous Tchaikovsky reads. It starts out feeling like a fantasy novel, with a princess running away to seek the help of an legendary wizard… but then you find out that the wizard is actually a hapless anthropologist, stranded when he came to study a far-flung space colony, and his fabled magics are really just Clarke’s third law in action. The characters were thoughtfully created and beautifully executed, and their internal, interpersonal, and external conflicts were all brilliantly woven together, with the narrative giving each time to develop and grow. Really solid piece.
Fevered Star, by Rebecca Roanhorse
It’s been long enough since I read the prequel (Black Sun) that I wasn’t sure I’d remember anything that led up to the climactic cliffhanger, but this one was really good at summing up the events of the first book without being boring. Even though this one was mostly about politicking, as opposed to the action that drove the prequel, it still felt dramatic and tense. Roanhorse takes a very show-don’t-tell approach to world establishment, letting the characters’ interactions with one another establish the salient features of each clan or gang or other organization, which is great but also confusing; there were many players with different affiliations, and I could have used a crib sheet. If I had to nitpick, it would be to say that this felt a bit characters-in-service-to-the-plot instead of the other way around; some previously forceful characters were weirdly passive as events shoved them about. Still, great reading; I’ll just have to remember to reread the prequels before the third one comes out.